Page 132 of Knotting the Cowboys

Blake's face goes through a series of expressions—shock, fury, disbelief—before settling on defensive rage.

"You're lying."

"Am I?" Cole's smile is all predator now. "Guess you'll never know. But I will. Every night once she's officially ours.Going to worship that body you were too stupid to appreciate, going to make her scream so loud the whole ranch hears it." He pauses, letting that sink in. "Speaking of the ranch—that's private property. You set one foot on our land, try to sniff around our business, and I'll have you arrested for trespassing. The new chief in town would enjoy that. We're real particular about unwanted visitors."

"You can't?—"

"I can and I will." Cole's done playing now, voice going hard as granite. "Sheriffs in these parts take property rights seriously. And they take threats to our Omegas even more seriously."

Blake shifts tactics with the ease of long practice, expression morphing into concerned sincerity.

It's a look I know well—the one he used on judges, on pack members, on anyone he needed to manipulate.

"I'm just worried about her mental state," he says, voice dripping false concern. "This whole divorce has clearly been traumatic. Made her... unstable. I mean, look at her—running off to the middle of nowhere, shacking up with the first pack that'll have her? Classic signs of a psychotic break."

"My sanity is fine," I manage through gritted teeth.

"Is it?" Blake tilts his head, studying me like I'm a particularly interesting lab specimen. "Because stable Omegas don't usually flee to backwater towns and spread their legs for every Alpha who shows interest. That's not normal behavior, Willa. That's someone in crisis."

"The only crisis here," Cole drawls, "is you thinking you have any say in her life anymore. My pack adores her. Values her. Sees her worth in ways you never could. So if you're done pretending to care about an Omega you tried to burn alive, I suggest you move along."

The words hang in the air like a bomb.

It’s like a virus in the air—contagion igniting before my words even finish echoing. "Burn alive?" ricochets in and out of doorways. There’s a pause in the rhythm of Sweetwater’s morning: Mrs. Henderson’s step falters, her hand stalling mid-latch at the post office door; Jim frowns so hard the veins bulge at his temples, then barks at a stack of fertilizer sacks like it’s their fault he just heard what he did; a knot of teens near the feed mill scatter and regroup, faces slack with disbelief, one of them already typing, thumbs blurring. The whole main street is suddenly a waterlogged wire for every unspoken suspicion about why I left Iron Ridge and whether the rumors about Blake’s last Omega had been true after all.

Blake senses the shift too. The easy dominion in his stance wavers as the people he aimed to cow with his words now level their gazes at him, faces hardening with a familiar small-town anger reserved for those who think themselves above consequence. For a split second, he looks less like the untouchable predator I remember and more like the cornered animal that he is—a flicker of panic behind slicked-back confidence.

Cole doesn’t move, doesn’t blink, just lets the words settle, lets the crowd’s absorbing silence do the damage. It’s a master class in Alpha intimidation, the kind that doesn’t need fists or howling threats—just the truth, delivered for maximum effect, left to fester in the open air.

Blake's mask slips for just a second, showing something ugly underneath, before he catches himself.

"I have no idea what you're implying," he says smoothly. "The fire was an accident. The investigation?—"

"The investigation was bullshit and everyone knows it." Cole's voice could strip paint. "Now get out of my sight before I forget I'm a civilized man."

The warm arm that slides around my waist from behind surprises me—I swear these men have a sixth sense for when I need them— because even before I see the glint of his sunglasses, I know that scent—smoke and cinnamon, the afterburn of fireworks in a snowstorm, and just enough danger to electrify the air. Mavi doesn't stride into scenes; he seeps in, invisible until the exact second his presence will cause maximum disruption or comfort. It’s like the molecules in the space behind me realign to make room for him, and then there he is—lean, loose, and coiled with tension that doesn’t show in his voice, only in the way he fits himself to my back, arms braced on either side of my hips.

There's no preamble, no warning. One instant I'm alone in my humiliation, and the next, Maverick's body has bracketed mine, his heat and his scent a wall I can hide behind. He doesn't exactly grab me—he doesn't have to, because the proximity is possession enough. His chin comes to rest just beside my ear, breath warm on my neck, and suddenly every nerve ending in my body lights up. The people on the street see it too, the way he wraps me in, yes, casual but absolute claim, and I feel it: how the focus of the crowd pivots from Blake’s public evisceration to this sharp, intimate counterclaim. The town absorbs spectacle like sugar water, and Maverick’s the hummingbird at the feeder—drawn to drama, but always the fastest, brightest thing in the room.

Blake’s face contorts, disgust sharpening to something like incredulity. The onlookers are silent, but their attention is a living thing, pulsing between the men who want to own the narrative of Willa James. For one second I worry that Mavi is about to escalate everything past the point of no return, but then he does what only Maverick Cross would do: he leans in just enough for the gesture to be unmistakable, then flashes a lazy, dangerous grin that says he’s enjoying himself and doesn’tgive a damn who’s watching. The message is clear—your move, asshole.

It should be mortifying, and maybe part of me is, but the bigger part is relief. His touch steadies me, grounds the chaos in my head. I can breathe again. My entire body, which had been locked in fight-or-splinter mode, starts to recalibrate itself around the steady, sparking line of his arm and the long, slow exhale of his presence. God, I missed this—the way Mavi can seize control of a disaster just by refusing to let it matter, by acting like it’s already over and he’s the one who won.

I expect him to speak, to throw a barb that will cut Blake to the bone, but instead he goes for something far more devastating: softness. He lets his lips skim the shell of my ear, a whisper of contact that makes my knees buckle, and in that fraction of a moment the whole town might as well not exist.

"Morning, beautiful," he murmurs against my ear, and I can hear the smile in his voice even as his arm tightens, pulling me back against his chest. "Miss me?"

Before I can answer—or even think fast enough—he spins me in his arms and his mouth crashes down on mine.

This isn't a greeting kiss.

This isn't even a regular kiss.

This is a claiming, pure and simple, designed to send a message to every Alpha in a three-block radius.

His tongue slides against mine with devastating skill, one hand tangling in my hair while the other grips my hip hard enough to bruise. He kisses like he's trying to crawl inside me, like he's been starving for the taste of me, like Blake and Cole and the whole damn town don't exist.

My body betrays me completely.

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